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9/28/2016

The Lifelong Learning Platform has published a new policy paper on integrating refugees and migrants through education as a means to build bridges in divided societies. EPA, very much in line with the work we are currently doing to support the inclusion of migrant parents, has contributed to the paper, especially on the need to empower all educators, to involve parents and to have a school leadership approach for achieving this in formal education. Migration internal and external, the refugees, inclusion and integration are hot topics in the EU and nearly all member states, so this is a very timely communication.

9/24/2016

The Serbian member of EPA, Pomoc Deci organised a very
interesting event in Belgrade in the middle of September 2016 with participants
from Balkan countries, Albania, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro as well
as Northern Ireland. While the event had an early childhood focus, EPA was
offered the opportunity to give our views on parental involvement and child
participation with special focus on peace-building, as well as to hold a
totally interactive workshop on active European citizenship on school level.
This was also a great opportunity to pilot our ELICIT+ training material in an
exciting context, the Balkans.

The most interesting presentation of the event was by Prof.
Bojana Breneselovic from Belgrade University. The title of the conference was
borrowed from her, and she made us change lenses and see segregation from a
totally different angle. After listening to the presentation, you are likely to
have realised that the younger your child is, the more likely it is they go to
a segregated school. But to prove that, you need to understand what segregation
really means according to the Oxford English Dictionary ‘the action or state of
setting someone or something apart from others’.

9/23/2016

On the second Tuesday of October, this year on 11 October, Europe celebrates the European Day of Parents and Schools
since 2002. Initiated by the European Parents’ Association (EPA), this day is
used to highlight the importance of
parents and teachers working together for the benefit of children by
parents’ organisations, often supported by their respective national Ministries
of Education.

Parents’ associations gathered together in EPA want to use
the occasion of #ParentsAndSchools
Day to promote and advocate for the
implementation of new policy
messages by the European
Commission published earlier this year on transforming schools to make them more attractive for students and
families alike in order to achieve the
EU2020 headline target of reducing early school leaving. These
recommendations fundamentally build on
the school community, parents, teachers and students taking ownership of
learning by actively participating in transforming the school to meet the needs of today’s children as well as preparing them for
the challenges of the 21st
century.

9/13/2016

Common statement by 177 European and national Civil Society
Organisations and Trade Unions

177 civil society organizations and trade unions have
adopted a common position demanding leaders fight back against populism, EPA among
them. The initiative was a joint effort of Concorde, ETUC, EYF and WWF and asks
the question of what is necessary to build the Europe we want and need.

"Europe is at a crossroads, and the future of European
cooperation and the benefits it brings are at stake. This is about the future
of our society and how we want to be viewed by the wider world. The future of
our planet and the kind of Europe our children will grow up in. The current
crisis highlights the urgent need to reflect on fundamental questions: how do
we ensure that the European project reclaims its promise of peace, democracy
and solidarity? How can Europe work for its people?

Too many people across Europe are dissatisfied and
disillusioned with the European Union and feel remote from its institutions and
policies. But there are groups of committed politicians, trade unions,
community groups and non-governmental organisations across Europe who are ready
to take action and work for a renewed Europe. Together, we can shape a Europe
that is inclusive, open, just, sustainable, and that works for people of all
ages, social backgrounds and nations.

9/09/2016

A new initiative by OBESSU to build bridges between migrant children and their peers in secondary schools

New large-scale programmes are being developed and carried out to support migrants' inclusion by a group of EU-level organisations, EPA being one of them. One of the partners, OBESSU, in order to encourage building bridges between migrant children and their peers in secondary schools, decided to launch the project Seeds for Integration. The main idea is to provide small, medium and large seed-grants to secondary school student unions and councils, or - in case there is no student council in the school - to independent groups representing the school’s students, to come up with creative initiatives around the topic of educational inclusion of migrant and refugee children. Read on to learn more about the initiative, and inform secondary school students who would be interested in it.

We will share information on all other projects, including our own, in this cooperation, made possible with the financial support of Open Society Foundation. Follow the EPA blog for new initiatives.

9/06/2016

UNICEF has recently developed a publication mapping of the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the Convention on the Rights of the
Child (CRC). It highlights the connections and synergies between the two
documents, allowing the reader to jump between each Global Goal and each
Convention article.

It takes a detailed, yet deliberately broad, interpretation
of the Global Goals and the Convention, highlighting for users the connections
between the two frameworks, so as to reinforce their potential for advocacy and
implementation. It will therefore be an invaluable tool for both UNICEF and
external partners, as they advocate for both CRC and SDG implementation over
the coming years. To reinforce the links in both directions, it is divided into
two sections: The first part identifies relevant CRC articles for each Global
Goal and their targets. The second part lists the goals and targets for each
CRC article. By clicking, the reader can jump between goals and articles in a
simple and user friendly way.

European Parents' Association

You are welcome to share your ideas, projects, programmes, best practices on this blog. Just ask for permission to blog. It doesn't matter if your information is not in English - just give a brief intro in English.